Holding You Close
by illiet
Summary: Jean likes to party and sometimes ends up in the room of strangers.


Hey there. . . I'm Jean Kirstein and you could say that college hadn't always been that good of an influence for me. At first it great, I had friends and this cute girlfriend Christa. While there were times that I completely wanted to murder this douche bag named Eren, it was a space that I was happy and content with. Then I got invited to a party. I mean I had gone drinking before, but I was nervous and didn't know how to control myself. I got wasted that night and for some reason I went to the next party, and the next, and the next. At some point Christa got so upset that I was spending more time drinking than talking to her, that she dumped me. From there I let go, and soon going out and getting shitfaced was what I thought of as a great night. Occasionally, some of my friends would come to party with me, although they wouldn't stick around for long. I became lonely and started to get around, constantly waking up in the rooms of chicks I didn't know, with them often not remembering me back either.

Funny enough, that's where this story picks up. I woke up to some guy shouting outside of the room about there not being enough soap in the shower, and how he was gonna kill whoever used up the last bit. Blinking my eyes I tried to adjust to the morning light, breathing in the pillow and noticing its sweet, chocolaty scent. The sheets were soft, and I wanted to just stay there and keep sleeping. But I soon realized that I wasn't at home, because covers were way too soft for someone who hadn't washed his bed for a few months. I had found myself yet again in the room of a stranger. Trying to get up, I immediately fell back down into the pillows, a splitting headache pounding away. As I lay there, I scanned the room for the girl to whom this room belonged to, and I found it to be empty.

The room was nice enough, if you ignored the floor littered with clothes and textbooks. Across the room was another bed, covered in some brownish orange chunks of god knows what. There was a kitchen by the door and it seemed like someone tried to keep it somewhat clean, but there was still a pair of underwear on the counter. By the TV there was an Xbox and a couple of beanies beside it. In fact, the more I looked around I came to realize that this looked more like a guy's dorm than some chick's room. Panic swept through me.

_Jesus Christ please tell me that I didn't do what I think I did._

I looked down and noticed that my shirt was missing.

"Shit!" I shouted. "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!"

I tossed the blankets off and attempted to leap from the bed, but failed and fell to the ground. After groaning for awhile I started to look for my missing shirt, to no prevail. A few minutes passed and I gave up, deciding to leave without my shirt. I then heard a click from the door, and I froze. The door opened up, and in walked this freckled guy fussing with some grocery bags and keys. He closed the door and turned around, startled when he saw me there. "Oh, you're awake." I just stared at him with no response whatsoever, out of horror of being half naked in this guy's room. There was an awkward silence and with each second I became more and more flustered. I wanted to run away and hide from the idea that I might have slept with this guy, but I couldn't even bring myself to move.

He finally broke the silence, "Are you okay there? You were pretty drunk last night."

_So that's what you do, eh? Get poor, defenseless, straight guys drunk and lure them into your room? _

"Um, your name's Jean, right? You kinda slurred that at me while I was trying to pick you up off the floor."

_Oh god, you touched me. _

_Physical. _

_Contact. _

_Fuck my life . . . oh wait._

"Hello? Is any of this getting through to you?"

I then muttered something under my breath. "What?" He asked.

I looked down and mumbled, "Did anything gay happen to me last night?" There was another awkward pause. Just in case he didn't hear, I tried repeating myself again, "I said, did anyth-"

"No, nothing gay happened." I looked up at and saw him burst into laughter.

"What the fuck?! Are you laughing at me? This is serious!" I shouted at him.

"Oh my god." He wiped away a tear and smiled at me. "Sorry dude, No Homo. My name is Marco."

"What?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"Yeah, I'm Marco." He started to walk across the room to put the stuff in the bags away. "You were totally wasted last night so my roomie was gonna take you home, but he got distracted by his girlfriend and left you. I thought it wouldn't be a great idea to just leave you there."

"Well, then where is my shirt?"

Placing a bottle of ketchup on the table he said, "You threw up on it."

"I did what?"

"Yeah, along with Connie's bed." He kinda looked disgusted as he said that part.

I paused for a few seconds, ". . . Connie?"

"Yeah, he said that you guys were friends."

I was surprised that Connie was even considered me a friend. The last time I had talked to him was at least a year ago, when we were both at a party and some shit went down. It was kinda stupid to get into a fight with him because he was high as fuck, but nonetheless I yelled at him for not hanging out with me like before. He just shouted that it was my fault for leaving all of our friends; I punched him and said that it wasn't as if I cared about them anyways.

"Hey? You sure do zone off, don't you." That snapped me back and I quickly covered with a "Yeah."

"Do you live here in the dorms?" He asked me.

"Um, yeah I do." I looked around and saw the bed covered in what was apparently my fault. Feeling guilty I said, "Do you need me to help with the bed?"

"Nah, I'll go get it." He walked over to the bed and gingerly picked up the blanket and walked over to an unused laundry basket, where he tossed it in. "There," He said triumphantly, "I'll make Connie take care of it when he gets back with Sasha."

"Wait, Sasha too?" I asked, wondering if this guy knew all of my former friends.

He looked at me as if I was stupid, "Yeah you know, Connie's girlfriend."

I think this was when my jaw dropped down to the ground. Hell, it probably burst through the ground all the way to the other side of the earth. To believe that Sasha and Connie. . . No way . . . That's unbelievable. Those two were like two little kids hyped up on sugar at a Birthday party. The only time I had seen them chill was when they would get stoned, which was rare because Sasha kept attempting to quit. It must have been evident to Marco that I was floored at this new fact because he said, "Oh god, did you not know? Was I not supposed to tell you?"

"Oh, um. It's nothing. . . Do you hang out with a lot of Connie's friends?" I kind of didn't want to know but I couldn't not ask him about them. At the time I wouldn't have admitted it, but I missed all of my old friends and while the guys I hung out with were cool they weren't genuine. Despite getting drunk often, I would often remember on my saddest days the times where me and Christa would go out and buy coffee or even hot cocoa with the gang. I uncomfortably stood there, wondering if this guy before me was experiencing all the things that I had cut myself off from.

"No, not really," He replied. "I'm not that social, so I just study or hang out with Sasha and Connie whenever they come over." I kinda felt relieved about that, but also felt sort of ashamed that I had been so worried in the first place.

"You need to borrow a shirt?" He asked me. I guess I had been so busy being troubled by who Marco knew that I had totally forgotten that I was standing shirtless in his room. My face flushed red and I mumbled a "Yes" to him and sat down on Marco's bed while he walked over to a drawer at the foot of the bed, pulling out this light green shirt. He tossed it to me and said, "You can use this, hopefully it will fit." I tugged it over my head and it fell loosely on me. "Thanks" I said.

"You want some coffee?" He bustled back over to the kitchen and noticed the underwear on the counter. "Jesus Christ Connie!" He shouted. Grabbing a spoon from the drawer he pushed the underwear to the floor, and for some reason the petrified expression on his face made me chuckle.

"Who's laughing now?" He retorted at me.

He got the coffee ready and called me over to sit at the counter by the kitchen. We got talking about Connie and Sasha and how they had been drug sober for about half a year now. Apparently Marco was going for a degree in architecture or something, although he didn't seem all that thrilled about it. He told me that it wasn't that he found the math aspect to be hard, but that it was too technical for him and that he wanted to go into fine arts. I laughed and he in return asked me what I wanted to major in, which made me pause. It hadn't really been something I had been thinking about, so I didn't know how to respond. I told him that and he just looked at me funnily, and I felt embarrassed so I told him the major I was in college for. It's kind of ironic now that I think back with me being surrounded with drugs and booze, but I had wanted to become a lawyer.

We exchanged numbers and chatted while drinking coffee, Marco every once in awhile getting up and re-filling the cups. I don't really remember what we talked about but it was nice kind of pace from what I usually dealt with first thing in the morning. Instead of waking up to an upset boyfriend of the previous night's girl or walking alone to my dorm, Marco was there chatting with me. Somehow we really clicked and I laughed more than I had in awhile. Time seemed to fly by and before we knew it, it was twelve. We probably would have talked more but the door opened again, this time with Connie walking in.

There was a few seconds of silence when he walked in but Marco soon broke it saying, "Hey Connie." Connie was silent, and he slowly closed the door behind him and walked over to what I guessed was the bathroom. I looked away and decided it was my time to leave, getting up and grabbing my phone off the table. "It was nice talking to you," I said to Marco. "I'll see you around." With that he looked up at me from the counter.

"Oh, okay. Bye" He must have been surprised that I left, but I didn't want to stay around long enough to have to talk with Connie. While I missed him, I wasn't about to let go of my pride just yet. I briskly walked to the stairs and saw that my room was just a floor down.

When I got into my room I didn't even bother to turn on the lights, I just plopped down on my bed. All alone in the room, I kinda wished I had a roommate. The dorm had seen better days, clothes and junk food wrappers thrown into the corner. I thought back on how clean in comparison Marco's room was and moaned thinking about cleaning this place up. It was then that my phone went off.

**From: Marco Bodt**

**To: Jean Kirstein**

_**No Homo**_


End file.
